Harris woke up in a very unfamiliar, very uncomfortable and very hard flat bed, with his head propped up at a weird angle on what seemed to be a glass headrest. And he wasn't alone. The bed, if you could call it that, was very wide and there were a number of men and women lying on the same bed to either side of him, each with their heads on a glass headrest. Harris jumped up out of bed with a startled yelp which woke up the other guests who'd been sleeping beside him.

One of them glared at him and said something Harris didn't understand. Another groaned and kept his eyes shut tight, saying something else he didn't understand, to which another said something that sounded like she was agreeing with him, and the others laughed.

Some of them started sitting up and getting changed into their day clothes right in front of him as if it was the most normal and natural thing in the world.

Harris shut his eyes tight.

"I... I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying or what's going on here," he said. "I didn't mean to wake you up, I was just um, not expecting to find myself in bed with a bunch of other people."

"Ah," said one of them with a very heavy accent that Harris couldn't quite place. "You're royalty then."

"No, just not from this world," Harris corrected.

"You some kind of God then?" asked another, also in that same heavy accent that Harris couldn't place.

"Definitely not," Harris grimaced. "I'm from a world like this one, but also not like this one. I'm experiencing a bit of culture shock. Where I come from, people usually don't share beds with strangers, only their, um, significant others. Or if they want to um... you know... "

Harris blushed furiously.

The others blanched at that, although Harris didn't see it. He just noticed the sudden awkward silence that followed his words.

One of the others swore, and even though Harris didn't understand what was said he could tell it was foul language based on the tone and how some of the others gasped.

"Your world sounds rather lonely," one of them said, slowly enunciating each syllable.

Harris shrugged, his eyes still closed. "Sometimes, yeah," he agreed. "But there's also freedom and autonomy in having your own space. Although I'm probably not the best person to ask about the benefits of sleeping alone, because I've hardly had any human touch my whole life."

Harris opened his eyes just a little bit, hoping that by now the others were sufficiently dressed. Instead of the looks of pity he was expecting, he got looks of awe and knowing smirks instead.

"What?" asked Harris, nervously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You say you're not a god, but you are touched by gods," said one of them, slowly.

"I would love to make love to a goddess," another sighed wistfully. "You're a lucky man."

"What!?" Harris protested, realizing what they thought he had said. "I haven't ever been touched by gods! And I certainly am not sleeping with a goddess!"

The others suddenly looked very confused.

Harris saw it, the moment they finally understood. Now there were the pitying looks he'd been expecting.

One of the women had shocked Harris by passionately shouting that he was far too attractive to go through life alone, and that he wasn't going to be alone anymore if they all had anything to say about it.

They all now knew he was chronically starved for affection and physical contact, and they also knew he was from an entirely different world and unfamiliar with the local culture.

So they'd brought (practically dragged) him to the throne room to stand before the pharaoh and explained the situation. They requested to give Harris a tour of Waset (the capital city of Ancient Egypt where they were currently in) and then of the whole kingdom of Egypt after that.

The pharaoh was shocked and dismayed to hear of the extreme loneliness and isolation the hero who'd saved his throne, Ha-ris, had experienced in his homeland. The pharaoh readily agreed to provide food, money and supplies for their journey. By the looks of shock on the others' faces, it was far more generous than they had expected.

Harris had been too embarrassed to bother correcting the Pharaoh's possibly religiously suggestive mispronunciation of his name. Nothing Harris said from that point on would convince anyone he wasn't related to the gods. Although some did speculate that since he was from an entirely different world, he may have been related to entirely different gods than those anyone knew of.

Harris's new traveling companions (an eclectic mixture of merchants, artisans, tradesmen, moderately high-ranking warriors, moderately low-ranking priests, and lesser nobles) spent the entire tour of Waset continuously alternating between teaching him about the world around him, trying to gauge his interest (or lack thereof) in the various women they encountered, and cursing the "heartless foreigner gods" who'd mistreated him in his homeland.

Harris wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or shrink in on himself in embarrassment. His heart settled for a compromise and made him a little uncomfortable and stand-offish. At the same time he had to constantly make a focused effort to resist the instincts of the more extroverted parts of himself, which urged him to compensate for or hide that stand-offishness.

He knew he must not talk to the others as much as they were talking to him. He needed to listen carefully and learn as much as he could before talking or he might risk offending them or causing a serious misunderstanding or conflict. That's what he told the others when they asked him why he was being so quiet, and there was a varying mixture of laughs and grimaces.

"We already know you are foreign and do not understand our ways," said one of them. "If you gravely insult someone, we will assume it was an accident until proven otherwise. And we will protect you from whom you insulted. Right?"

There was a chorus of agreement at that.

Harris knew it was more than almost anyone had ever given him back home, even after his socially sensitive side had finally bloomed.

He tried very, very hard not to cry.

D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-

The door to Naradia's cell unlocked that night. She wasn't sure why. She stepped out and looked around. There was no one there. She made it all the way to the palace gates without encountering anyone. Her path was clear.

She knew this was too easy. Suspiciously easy. So she turned back and headed for the stables. This time there were guards she had to sneak past.

She found a sleeping horse which she deemed suitable to her and she enchanted it with her Enthralling Hold. The horse's eyes opened. She mounted it and rode out of the stables, back towards the palace gates.

Standing in her way, sword in hand and multiple summoned spirits at his side was none other than...

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Author's note: And that's the end of episode 2! Hope you're enjoying so far, don't forget to leave a review!